Comic Book Resources

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

SDCC ’09 | Brian Heater, Eric Reynolds, Tom Spurgeon and Glen Weldon offer Comic-Con postmortems. “Although we had a good show and I personally had a pretty good time,” Fantagraphics Books’ Reynolds writes, “this was the first year I felt the weight of Hollywood’s cult of celebrity encroaching not only on the exhibit hall but also the sales of at least the independent publisher area we inhabited. The pre-show hype of advance ticket sellouts and hotel unavailability seems to have scared off a lot of the more casual comic book fans, many of whom I believe are the type who support publishers like Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, Drawn & Quarterly, Buenaventura, Sparkplug, Last Gasp, etc. Instead, you have more advance four-day passes being sold, leaving fewer available tickets for people who work Thursday and Friday and simply want to come down Saturday to do some shopping.”

Heater’s report includes video interviews with Stan Lee, Doug TenNapel, Jim Lee, Brian Talbot, Jordan Crane, Jason Lutes and more. [Comic-Con]

Publishing | Eitan Gavish provides an overview of the countless comics featuring President Obama as everything from a barbarian to a zombie-fighter to a survivor of the apocalypse. “I think that the strength and the resolve that President Obama shows, and the promise that he shows, is something that lends himself more to be a superhero, and less of a two-dimensional character as some previous Presidents may be imagined,” says Nick Barrucci, publisher of Dynamite Entertainment. [New York Daily News]

Publishing | Jim Munroe, writer of Therefore Repent! and Sword of My Mouth, chats briefly about new business models for comics: “People are constantly complaining about how print is dead and it seems to me like there is a lot of talk about this controversy, but very few alternative models are being floated.” [The Globe and Mail]

Passings | Steve Holland has more on the career of photographer and cartoonist Francisco Hidalgo, who passed away at age 80. [Bear Alley]

Creators | I keep meaning to link to David Brothers’ interview with Adam Warren about Empowered, process, manga and more: “… Worrying about whether or not one’s work is ‘timeless’ isn’t just a waste of time, but worse, a richly pretentious waste of time … Even if a writer is careful to stay clear of overt “dating” issues — say, ultra-transient pop-culture references, à la some hideous Friedberg & Seltzer cinematic atrocity — his or her writing is still going to wind up dated by less obvious contemporary trends, current influences, fashionable assumptions and cultural paradigms informing and underlying the work. So I say, screw it, just do the best you can with what knowledge, insight and speculation you can garner at the present time, and let posterity take care of itself.” [4thletter!]

Creators | Tired of me going on about Furry Water, the upcoming comic by Rafael Grampá and Daniel Pellizzari? (Tough!) Grampá now has revealed a few details on the six-issue miniseries, which will be published next year by Dark Horse. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Fred Van Lente and and Dennis Calero discuss their newly announced X-Men Noir sequel Mark of Cain. [The Watchtower Podcast]

Creators | Brigid Alverson talks to Scott Christian Sava about the evolution of The Dreamland Chronicles, writing graphic novels for children, and why he attends conventions. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Creators | Tony Lee takes on the graphic-novel adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for Del Rey. [Splash Page]

Comics | Remembering the Cousin Oliver of The New Teen Titans: Danny Chase. [Armagideon Time, via Progressive Ruin]